6 And they gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before Jehovah, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against Jehovah. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.
And the people of Israel cried to the LORD, saying, "We have sinned against thee, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Ba'als."
We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before Jehovah.
I will rise up and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee;
Their heart cried unto the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye rest. Arise, cry out in the night, in the beginning of the watches; pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, who faint from hunger at the top of all the streets.
Confide in him at all times, ye people; pour out your heart before him: God is our refuge. Selah.
Oh that my head were waters, and mine eye a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
And the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I shall bid thee. And Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! And the men of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. And the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water; and let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God; and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knoweth but that God will turn and repent, and will turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them, and he did [it] not.
And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes; and I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made my confession, and said, Alas Lord! the great and terrible ùGod, keeping covenant and loving-kindness with them that love him, and that keep his commandments: we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy commandments and from thine ordinances.
Wilt thou judge them, wilt thou judge, son of man? Cause them to know the abominations of their fathers,
Mine eye poureth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after I knew myself, I smote upon [my] thigh. I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, for I bear the reproach of my youth.
And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, through their unfaithfulness wherein they were unfaithful to me, and also that they have walked contrary unto me,
Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast turned thy ways hither and thither to the strangers under every green tree; and ye have not hearkened to my voice, saith Jehovah. Return, backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you, and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
Mine eyes run down with streams of water, because they keep not thy law.
My tears have been my bread day and night, while they say unto me all the day, Where is thy God?
There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation; no peace in my bones, because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over my head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink, they are corrupt, because of my foolishness. I am depressed; I am bowed down beyond measure; I go mourning all the day. For my loins are full of burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am faint and broken beyond measure; I roar by reason of the agitation of my heart.
I am wearied with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I dissolve my couch with my tears.
He will sing before men, and say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it hath not been requited to me;
My friends are my mockers; mine eye poureth out tears unto +God.
And thou gavest them into the hand of their oppressors, and they oppressed them; and in the time of their distress, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from the heavens, and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their oppressors.
And on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of Jehovah their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed, and worshipped Jehovah their God.
And at the evening oblation I arose up from my humiliation; and with my mantle and my garment rent, I fell on my knees, and spread out my hands to Jehovah my God, and said: O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities are increased over [our] head, and our trespass is grown up to the heavens. Since the days of our fathers, we have been in great trespass to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, our priests, have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, and to captivity, and to spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day. And now for a little space there hath been favour from Jehovah our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we are bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us before the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God and to repair the ruins thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And now, what shall we say, our God, after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments,
And I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way; for we had spoken to the king saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his anger is against all them that forsake him. And we fasted, and besought our God for this; and he was entreated of us.
And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek Jehovah, and proclaimed a fast throughout Judah.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Samuel 7
Commentary on 1 Samuel 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
In this chapter we have,
1Sa 7:1-2
Here we must attend the ark to Kirjath-jearim, and then leave it there, to hear not a word more of it except once (ch. 14:18), till David fetched it thence, about forty years after, 1 Chr. 13:6.
1Sa 7:3-6
We may well wonder where Samuel was and what he was doing all this while, for we have not had him so much as named till now, since ch. 4:1, not as if he were unconcerned, but his labours among his people are not mentioned till there appears the fruit of them. When he perceived that they began to lament after the Lord he struck while the iron was hot, and two things he endeavoured to do for them, as a faithful servant of God and a faithful friend to the Israel of God:-
1Sa 7:7-12
Here,
1Sa 7:13-17
We have here a short account of the further good services that Samuel did to Israel. Having parted them from their idols, and brought them home to their God, he had put them into a capacity of receiving further benefits by his ministry. Having prevailed in that, he becomes, in other instances, a great blessing to them; yet, writing it himself, he is brief in the relation. We are not told here, but it appears (2 Chr. 35:18) that in the days of Samuel the prophet the people of Israel kept the ordinance of the passover with more than ordinary devotion, notwithstanding the distance of the ark and the desolations of Shiloh. Many good offices, no doubt, he did for Israel, but here we are only told how instrumental he was,